Brady Tkachuk on Ridly Greig's Empty Net Slapshot: "I Was Crying Laughing"

Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk has never minded being a shift disturber, getting deep under the skin of his opponents. In that sense, Tkachuk and teammate Ridly Greig are pretty much cut from the same cloth.

So when Tkachuk was asked this week on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast about Greig's slapshot into an empty net that sent the Toronto Maple Leafs and their gigantic fan base into a rage spiral, it was no surprise that he got a kick out of it.

"I'm not gonna lie to you," Tkachuk said. "I was crying, laughing – until the cross-check happened, and then the wires crossed a little bit. So, you know what? If you know (Greig), and I hope a lot of people get to know him, he's one of the best guys around. 

Tkachuk says he was anxious to pick Greig's brain after the game, to find out what was going through his head when he dunked in the Leafs' face.

"He was like, 'To be honest with you, I didn't think of it until I did it,'" Tkachuk said. "'And then I blacked out from there. And then all of a sudden, I knew it was coming but  I didn't expect a cross-check.'

"It was pretty funny at the time," Tkachuk said. "TSN has been covering it for the last four days since it happened, so they still haven't moved past it. And it's every morning when we're sitting in the lounge watching TV, it's still on and we still can't believe it, We've moved on and it's still such a big thing."

It stands to reason that Tkachuk would get a kick out of the whole thing and then quickly move past it. This is a player who's happy to play it any way you want. This is a player who famously challenged the entire Detroit Red Wings bench to fight last season, hollering at them, "Who wants it?"

It's no wonder the slap shot made him laugh.